Cats’ Cupboard provides students support to succeed at K-State

The number of students using the Cats’ Cupboard food pantry continues to increase, five months after its opening.

“When we opened, five [people] would have been a really big day, and now 20 is nothing,” Erin Bishop, Cat’s Cupboard coordinator, said. “The last time I crunched the numbers, which would have been a week ago, maybe, 250 unique students have used the pantry, or more, with well over probably 650 visits.”

According to the 2015 Campus Climate Project Final Report, 39.4 percent of K-State students have difficulty affording food. It was for this reason the campus food pantry Cats’ Cupboard opened its doors in Fairchild Hall five months ago.

“We serve any student on campus that’s looking for some food,” Bishop said. “Anywhere from getting groceries for the whole week to coming in and getting some breakfast.”

All items at the pantry are donations supplied by the community.

“We depend highly on donation drives in the community,” Bishop said.

Most donations come from sources such as food drives organized by fraternities and campus clubs, as well as individual donations from people who just want to give.

She said she is also excited about the potential to go out and educate people about the services Cats’ Cupboard provides for the K-State community.

In the long term, Bishop said she would like to raise awareness of Cats’ Cupboard while decreasing the stigma associated with seeking help.

“Our goals are to serve students in need as well as decrease stigma,” Bishop said. “There’s a lot of stigma associated with seeking help, and we don’t want that. We want this to be open for everybody.”

In the end, Cats’ Cupboard’s main goal is providing students the support needed to succeed at K-State.

“We want to help people graduate because school is really expensive, living in Manhattan is really expensive, books are expensive, being an adult is expensive, and so we want to provide that support,” Bishop said.

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The Kansas State Collegian is the daily newspaper at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. Its content is reported, edited, and produced entirely by students, and students make up the advertising sales staff.
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